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Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."

Please help

I'm going to write about a couple of things I may get some flack
for. Not that I care. I've given this a LOT of thought and I'm
sure I'm right in these areas. I'm also sure it affects
everyone in my country - and maybe other countries, too.

Before I start, I'd like to caution you not to jump to any
conclusions about my motives.

I am not a Republican
I am not a Democrat
I am not a Libertarian
I am not a “Tea Partier”

I am an Independent, and I lean towards being a Liberal -
although I prefer to call it Progressive.

I once had a Philosophy professor who said I was a “pragmatic
contextualist.” He said I held a worldview that based my
decisions on what is practical to get the job done within the
context of each individual situation.

He was right. I don't depend upon religious doctrine,
political philosophies, media positions or, sometimes, even
laws to decide what's the right thing to do.

When I took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI), I was found to be almost perfectly, evenly divided between
left-brain and right-brain.

Now, that keeps me from ever being extraordinary. You would
need to lean way into left-brain operation to be a real scholar.
And, you'd need to lean way into right-brain operation to be
extremely creative. I am neither. But, I AM balanced.

That means, I sometimes agree with the Conservatives as well as
leaning toward Liberalism. And, I believe every situation
warrants its own evaluation.

Now, having said all that - I hope you'll realize, the rest of
this is simply for what I see as for the good of our country,
our businesses and our lives.

It has nothing to do with politics, so please spare me the bitching.

A project is afoot to take the four largest banks down to
where they cannot be considered “too big to fail.” Never mind where it
came from - it's a great idea!

In fact, I said it myself before I ever heard it anywhere else.
But, nobody was listening to me. ;-)

I've said before, WE are the answer to this economic mess, since
we can no longer depend on our governments. And, this is
something only we, as the general public, can do.

We need to take to power away from Wall Street and give it to
our local businesses!

The idea is to stop doing business with the following banks:
Citigroup, Bank of America Corp., J. P. Morgan Chase &
Company and Wells Fargo & Company. These are the banks that
received the biggest taxpayer bailouts, then used them to
pay enormous bonuses to their top executives.

However, the main idea is to move our money and financial
business to small community banks. Just 10 banks control 90%
of the market and the top three - Citibank, Bank of America,
and JP Morgan Chase - control a whooping 63%!

It's easy enough to check your community banks' financial
status. You can do that online. Better yet, stop by and pick
up their printed financial statements. Grab a brochure, too,
so you can compare pricing on fees.

While you're there, talk to someone. See if you can remember
what it's like to know the people you do business with!

Have I done it? Yep, I have. I have one account left to yank
away from one of them, but I have to make a couple of other
changes, first. I am also transferring the balances away from
every credit card I have with any of them.

Most community banks and credit unions also issue credit cards. We
do NOT have to put up with the thieving tactics of the big
banks on our credit cards! If this situation continues as is - and it appears as
though it will - we have only ourselves to blame. Because we
can do something to take them down!

Here's a great article to help you change banks so it isn't
overwhelming if you have automatic deposits, automated
payments, recurring debit card transactions, etc.

I don't usually ask people to sign petitions to the government. In fact, when I
have something to say, I usually go right to the White House
website - www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/ - not that it does any good. But, I feel better!

But, I want to draw your attention to this important petition:

"Tell President Obama: Due To Economic Crisis, We Demand
Rebuilding The Decaying U.S. Infrastructure Now!" (as has been
promised!)

I really think this is an important cause, and I'd like to
encourage you to add your signature, too. It's free and takes
just a few seconds of your time.

It's (past) time that guy did what he promised. Maybe this will
push him forward - maybe not. But, again, we have no one to
blame but ourselves if we continue to just sit here on our
thumbs and do nothing.

Jobs will do more to bring us out of this mess than anything
else. And, there is NO excuse for our country allowing bridges,
levies, etc. to crumble!

Let's see, now, what was that about Nero fiddling while Rome
burned? What were the people doing? Dancing?

Of course, these projects to take our power back will take many
more than those reading these words. Please pass it around to
everyone you know!

As soon as we recognize and act on our power, we'll take it away
from the political whores and imbeciles in Washington!

This is another area where things need to pick up. A few years
ago, iCop got thousands of visitors a day. Today, not so much.
Why?

Same reason we used to get such a low rating on Alexa. Today,
that rating is sky-high. I don't feel particularly bad about it
because it has to do with the incredibly increased number of
websites folks have to choose from.

Nevertheless, we all MUST have traffic. And, I have NO idea
what to recommend to you on this.

I don't mind trying things. Some work - some don't. It ain't
the end of the world if something doesn't work. It's just a
lesson learned.

It's part of what I do here. I try things so you don't have to.
And, I search for things that won't cost you much during this
down time. I don't depend on the outcomes. To me, it's simply
experimentation to save YOU time. And, if things work, I'll
keep using them right along with you.

So, I'm going to try out a traffic program pretty quickly here.
I'll pass the information along if I think it's worth you giving
it a shot.

------------
“It improves our reputation at the ISP's, where they know how
many emails we deliver and how many are opened. Having a poor
ratio of opened mails can cause delivery problems for all of our
lists.

Some ISPs take old abandoned accounts, and consider them spam
trap addresses - meaning that any email received is labeled as
spam. So even though that person joined your list using the
confirmed opt-in process, and never bothered to unsubscribe, we
get blamed for being a spammer.

It also reduces the amount of times people report your email as
spam. Since they are no longer getting it, so they can not click
on the "Report as Spam" button. Again, this improves our
reputation at the ISPs, as they monitor the ratio of deliveries
to email reported as spam.

The industry wide average for email addresses going bad is 3 to
5 percent per month. That means over the course of a year, half
of your subscribers have abandoned that email account. And
since most ISPs now have very large or even unlimited mail
boxes, we do not get back bounce messages telling us their
mailbox is full.”------------

In addition, my total number of subscribers has no meaning. The
only meaning is in the number of my readers! Cleaning the list
makes delivery to those readers even more assured.

I've also shortened the email version of the
newsletter. AOL only delivers an email up to 15KB in size. It
used to be 20 KB. And, they didn't even bother to consult me when they changed
it! Umph!

BTW - if you need a new email service, I HIGHLY recommend Mark
and www.Mail-List.com. I've found I don't NEED all the bells and
whistles of some of the other services. What we ALL need is DELIVERY!

Nope - not an affiliate of this service. I simply recommend it.
Did YOU know about this information from the ISPs?